Gilded Heart
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM pre-slash. Harry finds yet another locket that's been made into a Horcrux—except that this one is accidental and belongs to Draco Malfoy, who was in such pain after the war that he wished his heart away. Now Harry is left unsure what to do when Malfoy refuses to take his heart back. Twoshot. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Gilded Heart  
**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters; I am writing this story for fun and not profit.  
**Pairing: **Harry/Draco pre-slash  
**Content Notes: **Angst, brief violence, Hogwarts "eighth year"  
**Wordcount: ** This part 3800  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Summary: **Harry finds yet another locket that's been made into a Horcrux—except that this one is accidental and belongs to Draco Malfoy, who was in such pain after the war that he wished his heart away. Now Harry is left unsure what to do when Malfoy refuses to take his heart back.  
**Author's Notes: **Another of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics, for a request about what would happen if Draco accidentally hid his heart. This will have two parts, the second to be posted tomorrow.

**Gilded Heart**

Harry shook his head as he stepped into the Room of Requirement. As annoying as it was, it seemed that each time he came into the Room now, something buzzed and nagged at the edge of his attention. It was especially irritating since Harry came here to get some peace from the stares that followed him around the castle.

But the Room looked the same as it always did when he conjured this particular iteration of it: softly lit and filled with a single gigantic squashy sofa, a blazing fireplace, a table covered with Harry's favorite foods, and blankets that were red with the Gryffindor lion on them in gold. Harry took the sofa and sprawled out on it, eating a piece of treacle tart that the table shifted towards him to offer his fingers. He leaned back.

His elbow rammed into something cold and hard.

"Shit!" Harry snapped, sitting up and whipping the blanket back. A locket stared up at him from beneath the pillow. It was small and a brilliant gold, with a swan on the front. The swan might have been made of diamond or quartz for all Harry knew. He wasn't good at jewels.

Harry sighed and picked up the locket. The Room of Requirement had been damaged in the Battle of Hogwarts, what with all the Fiendfyre blazing around inside it. He supposed he was lucky he hadn't had more malfunctions before now.

The minute his fingers touched the locket's chain, though, they buzzed, and Harry snatched his hand back with his eyes narrowed. That particular buzz made an old ache appear in his scar.

This locket was…

Harry tentatively touched the chain again, and hissed. It didn't make him hurt the way Voldemort's possessions had, but there was no mistaking that twinge in his forehead. This locket was a Horcrux.

Harry floated the thing into the air with magic and studied it skeptically. No way to tell who that swan crest belonged to, no way to tell whose it was. Maybe it was even a student who had left Hogwarts a long time ago and was now drifting around as a bodiless wraith somewhere, waiting for rescue that wasn't ever going to come.

_But how did it survive the Fiendfyre if it was? _

Harry frowned. He couldn't be sure that the Fiendfyre had touched _all _corners of the Room of Requirement. It might only have affected the one where everything was hidden.

After some thought, he asked, "Could I get a safe place to store a Horcrux?"

A space opened immediately in the wall nearest him. Harry studied it, then added, "I would like steel to sheathe the inside instead of stone."

The Room shut the door of the safe and opened it again when it had been rearranged. Harry cast the Horcrux into the space, asked the Room to make the safe inaccessible to everyone except him, and watched in satisfaction as the door clanged shut on it.

That should hold it until he decided what to do about the bloody thing, and prevent it from possessing anyone if it was capable of that.

_Deciding what to do about a Horcrux. Just exactly what I wanted to do after the war._

* * *

"Has Malfoy always acted that strangely?"

Harry thought his question would get at least a little interest, since Malfoy had acted _really _strange today: distracted and staring off into the distance, snapping at Parkinson when she tried to interact with him, and not eating. But Hermione didn't raise her head from her book, and Ron waved a lazy hand from where he sat in front of the fire.

"Who knows why Malfoy does anything?" Ron flipped a card and then laughed as the ones in front of Seamus ignited. "I win!"

"Damn it!" Seamus threw his cards across the room. Hermione shifted so that the sparking one coming towards her didn't scorch the pages of her book.

"Oi! That's my girlfriend, mate!"

"Maybe you shouldn't win all the Exploding Snap games, then!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "No, I mean it. He acted like he'd got a giant shock or something. His father hasn't died in Azkaban, has he?"

"You care too much about Malfoy, Harry," Ginny muttered, leaning her head back on Dean's lap. She and Harry had broken up without too much fuss after the war, and Harry could watch her like this and just hope she was happy. Well, happy and awake enough to answer his Malfoy question. "Don't stalk him like you did in sixth year, that's all I ask."

"I turned out to be _right_—"

Ginny faked a snore. Harry tried to keep talking, and Dean put a finger to his lips and scowled at Harry.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I think that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

"Your standards for ridiculous are low, Harry." Hermione finally popped her head up from the book. "Who cares why he does anything now? You don't have to worry about him. He'll find redemption or he won't."

"I just think there might be something wrong with him." _I think he might have created a Horcrux _wouldn't go over well.

"Then ask him about it." Ron leaned back and yawned enormously. "If you really want to go down that road of caring about what Malfoys and Slytherins think anymore. You helped his family in plenty of ways after the war. Not your fault if he's stupidly squandering the second chance you gave him."

Harry closed his eyes and said nothing. There was nothing to be said.

Except that, somehow, he had to find out if Malfoy had a connection to that locket Horcrux.

* * *

Harry sighed and made sure that the silken cloth the Room of Requirement had given him was wrapped tightly around the locket. Then he stepped out of the corridor he'd been waiting in into Malfoy's path.

Malfoy stepped walking at once and stared at Harry with blank, glazed eyes. Harry wanted to snort to himself. Of _course _something was wrong with Malfoy. It shouldn't have taken him this long to notice that. Malfoy's hand waved back and forth vaguely, as if he was reaching out to clutch a wall that wasn't there. He pressed his other hand against his heart and then took it away again when he realized Harry was watching him.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" His voice was thin.

"I want to know if this is yours." Harry unwrapped the locket and held it out to him.

Malfoy merely stared at the locket much the same way that he'd stared at Harry or the corridor. It was the locket which came to life; Harry actually thought he saw the swan's pale wings beat. It rose so that it strained Harry's arm to hold onto it, pointing straight at Malfoy.

"All right, this is yours," Harry said. "Why in the world did you _make _one? You stupid arsehole."

Malfoy looked at him in turn. Even with the locket doing its best to get back to him, his eyes hadn't changed. "I don't know what you're talking about, Potter."

"You made a Horcrux!" Harry still kept his voice low, and saw Malfoy react for the first time. He took a step back and shook his head. For a second, his eyes flickered and revealed some hint of his personality.

"I did not!"

"I know what they feel like, and this one feels like one." Harry shook the locket, which made a chiming sound as the chain rattled. "And look at the way it's dying to reunite with you. Why in the world would you—"

"I didn't cut a piece off my soul. I didn't commit a murder."

Harry paused. He didn't have any way of being certain Malfoy was telling the truth, of course, but he remembered how reluctant Malfoy had been to hurt Dumbledore when they met on the top of the Astronomy Tower. He _would _have to have changed a lot before he could murder someone to create a Horcrux.

"What did you do, then?"

"I just read in a book that you can wish pain away if you concentrate on it long enough. That's what I did. I wished the pain away." Malfoy shrugged, his hands, as pale as spiders, moving so that they hung down at his sides again. "And then things were fine."

"But you can't do that!" Harry said, and glanced at the locket again. It was still pointing at Malfoy, and Harry thought it would fly straight to him if he let go of the chain.

_In fact, why not try that? _

Malfoy was opening his mouth to answer when Harry let go of the locket's chain. It soared like an enthusiastic bird and hit Malfoy in the jaw. He fell back, cursing, and Harry ran over to pick up the locket, wincing.

"What the hell did you do to me, Potter?"

Harry had to pause, because Malfoy's voice was more normal than he'd heard it in a while. The change hadn't been sudden, despite what he'd thought, now that he could acknowledge it. Malfoy hadn't reacted to much of anything this year, staring at everyone with glazed eyes and only talking to those who made an effort to talk to him. Harry had just thought that it was a defense mechanism to keep people from taunting him about standing trial and having his father sentenced to a year in Azkaban.

"I let the locket go, and it went to you. You created it. You made it. You should do something about it." In truth, Harry would be relieved to have Malfoy do something about it so he didn't have to.

"You hit me with a locket. I'm going to tell this to the Headmistress." Malfoy glared at Harry and, reaching out, closed his hand around the locket's chain.

It rumbled and then it sang. Harry stared, his mouth open. The swan on the front of the locket had its beak open, too. The sound seemed to reverberate in the walls and down the stones all the way to his toes.

Malfoy jerked his hand back as if it was on fire. The locket tumbled to his feet and tried to curl its chain around his feet like a puppy.

"You created this and enchanted it to follow me around? How childish _are _you, Potter?"

"You created this, Malfoy! You wished your heart away and it became something indistinguishable from a Horcrux, which, let me tell you—"

"I'm nothing like _him_!"

Malfoy spat the words with fury, and then stormed past Harry towards McGonagall's office. The locket tried to follow him, and Malfoy spun away and kicked it. It rolled to Harry's feet and lay there. Harry picked it up gingerly. He thought he could probably touch the chain now. It wasn't exactly a traditional Horcrux.

The locket rang like it had just been dropped and radiated an emotion that Harry could actually feel. It was baffled. And hurt. It had thought Malfoy would pick it up and treasure it, and take back whatever of his emotions he'd managed to wish into it.

Harry shook his head. "I should have known that it's not going to be that easy," he told the locket. "No Horcrux situation I ever handled was."

Then he realized he was talking to a _locket_, of all things, and sighed. He would have to carry it until he met Malfoy again. He would see if the change had been lasting when Malfoy came to dinner in the Great Hall that night.

* * *

"I am very disappointed in you for following other students around and hitting them in the jaw, Mr. Potter."

Harry rested his head in his hands. He was up in McGonagall's office, and she was regarding him with the sort of stern disapproval that had always meant something terrible was about to happen to him back when he was a normal Gryffindor.

"I already told you that I didn't, Headmistress McGonagall," Harry repeated for the fifth time. "Malfoy did this _stupid _thing and wished his pain away. It took form as a jeweled locket in the Room of Requirement. I actually thought it was a Horcrux at first. I let it go and it flew to him and hit him in the jaw."

"There is no spell to wish one's pain away, Mr. Potter."

Harry glanced up and shook his head. "I don't think it was a spell. I think it was really a wish. And Malfoy just wished hard enough that his magic actually obeyed him."

McGonagall studied him skeptically. She had a knitted shawl around her shoulders, and looked as though she wanted another one against the cold. It struck Harry for the first time that McGonagall was really pretty old, and she might die soon, the way Dumbledore had. He hid his own shiver by leaning back in his chair.

"Even if you found a locket that belonged to Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall finally said, her voice kind, "and he claimed that he wished his pain away, why would his pain take the form of a locket?"

"I don't know. But Headmistress, I swear—"

"I understand that you are a bit tired from studying for your NEWTS, Mr. Potter," McGonagall interrupted him. "And you appear to have thought this—locket really belonged to Mr. Malfoy. So you will not receive detention for hitting him with it, and I will only take five points from Gryffindor. But I do require that you listen to my advice."

"Yes, Headmistress?"

"Rest, Mr. Potter. Do your best to move on past your memories of the war. Perhaps you should speak with a Mind-Healer at St. Mungo's. I think you may have required something of the Room without realizing what you were doing. Perhaps a new mystery to investigate, a new intrigue to chase after? And so it gave you the locket."

Harry found himself scowling. "Headmistress, I really don't—"

"All I ask is that you consider the possibility. And please leave Mr. Malfoy alone. Even if he really believes that he has wished his pain away, such a thing is none of your business."

Harry stared at her. "But haven't you noticed how _different _he's been acting, Professor? The way he stares through everyone and doesn't really seem like he's _there_? If wishing his heart away affected him that way, how can it _not _be my business? Someone should do something!"

Professor McGonagall regarded him coolly. Harry replayed his words in his head and winced a little, but he didn't look down and he didn't look away. "Someone should do something," he repeated.

"You may have been right two years ago about Mr. Malfoy needing help," McGonagall said finally, her voice gentle. "But You-Know-Who is gone, and his parents are no longer in danger. It is up to _him_ to approach you if he wants your help. In the meantime, Mr. Potter, stay out of it."

* * *

But Harry couldn't.

Malfoy's change to someone more active and actually capable of noticing things didn't last. He had glazed eyes by the afternoon of the day Harry hit him with the locket; he stared past people when they talked, barely ate, and didn't complete any of the assignments. The professors had already been treating him more coolly than they had in the past, but now they shot him harsh glances every time they asked for an essay and Malfoy didn't have it.

It was driving Harry _mental_.

He tried to talk to Slughorn, who he thought might have an interest in Malfoy now that his name had been cleared, but Slughorn only shook his head until his chins wobbled and said, "Eh, what? Sometimes they take the loss of their prestige hard, these pure-bloods. Nothing to be done but wait for better days."

He tried to talk to the Auror called Dawlish, who was their Defense professor this year. Dawlish only snorted and asked how Harry was telling the way Malfoy behaved from Death Eater behavior.

He asked Hermione, presenting it as Malfoy needing to do well this year so he could pass his NEWTS and have a life, and also adding the mystery about the locket because he thought it would intrigue her. Hermione told him that he should worry about his own NEWTS, the way she was doing.

Malfoy sat through one entire dinner doing nothing but staring at the wall, and Harry snapped.

* * *

Once again, Harry was waiting for Malfoy with the locket, but this time he was just around the corner from the Slytherin common room, under his Invisibility Cloak. He'd heard one pair of students mention Malfoy, but they were laughing and he wasn't with them.

And every Slytherin in existence seemed to think the corner Harry had to stand to see the common room door was the perfect place to snog.

Harry had just dodged his fourth couple when Malfoy walked slowly about the corridor. He was looking at his feet as if he had to watch where he was going on the perfectly smooth stone—no, wait, as if he had never seen them before and wanted to see them walk. Harry reached out, grabbed his arm, and dragged him towards the corner.

Malfoy turned his head slowly, like someone in a dream. Harry pressed the locket to his chest.

Malfoy gave a deep gasp, which sounded like he was in pain, and then bent over at the waist. Harry followed him down, keeping the locket pressed to his skin. Well, his shirt. He thought the skin might have been even better, but then he would have to _move _Malfoy's robes, and then—

He didn't want to think about it. His face was burning enough as it was. Everyone was going to say he was stupid and it was Malfoy's own choice if he wanted to sacrifice his life, or his pain, or his heart.

Harry just thought he should have the chance to see what he was giving up.

The locket hummed and sang in Harry's hands, and as far as Harry could pick up emotions from it, it was happy. It was back where it belonged. It wanted to sink into Malfoy's skin and actually become part of him again, but Harry didn't know how to make that happen, and it seemed the locket didn't, either.

_Maybe it can only happen when Malfoy wants it, too. When he reverses whatever the wish was that made his pain into a Horcrux in the first place—_

But Malfoy got his strength back then, and threw out a few wild punches. Harry ducked all of them, but he fell backwards, and that took the locket away from Malfoy's chest, and it also meant Harry sprawled on the floor and the Invisibility Cloak slid off him.

Malfoy promptly aimed a kick at his ribs. Harry rolled aside. He might be concerned about the git, but nothing about that was congruent with letting Malfoy kick him in the ribs.

"Potter, leave me alone. I finally have the life I want and you're trying to ruin it?"

Harry blinked and stood up, the locket dangling from his hand. This was Malfoy the way he was supposed to be, Harry was fairly sure, but nothing he was saying made sense. "How do you have the life you want?"

"My parents aren't in danger. I'm not in danger from You-Know-Who anymore. I'm not suffering every hour of the day. My pain is gone. And you want me to put it _back_?" Malfoy shook his head, and his hair made a little flopping noise where it struck his ears. "Leave me alone. Don't try to reverse the wish."

"Do you really have a life when you forget to eat half the time and you're going to fail all your NEWTS because you don't care enough?"

"I am _not _going to fail all my NEWTS!"

"Really, Malfoy? You don't do any of your essays or homework. Are you really going to care enough to study the way you have to to get good marks?"

Malfoy stared at him. "Harry Potter. Caring about my marks. That's an unexpected result of the stalking last year."

"I would do it for anyone who was stupid enough to make a fucking Horcrux!" Harry yelled, and waved the locket around.

"That is not a Horcrux." Malfoy tilted his nose back to the ceiling. "That is the answer to my wish."

"I'm sorry, Malfoy, I didn't know the greatest wish of your life was to be a clueless berk."

Malfoy hissed like an offended snake, although no words were coming to Harry's ears. Then he said, "You don't need to concern yourself with me _at all_. The war is done. You did your part. Go away now." He flicked his fingers at Harry as if commanding an insect to leave him alone.

"Fucking _fine_!" Harry dropped the locket on the floor, not caring at this point what Malfoy did with it, and turned around. He'd done his best. The git was determined to be a git and drift through life, and he could do no more.

Malfoy gasped so hard that Harry whipped back around. If the locket had hit him in the face again and he was going to complain to McGonagall—

But instead, Malfoy was holding the locket in one hand, away from his chest, and his face was contorted, his eyes shut. Harry thought he could actually see the emotions, or the pain, or whatever was really trapped in that locket, flowing from the cold metal into Malfoy. His skin had a sheen Harry hadn't realized it was missing. His fingers curled tighter and tighter around the locket, and Harry found himself holding his breath, hoping that—

Malfoy abruptly opened his eyes and tossed the locket away from him, frantically shaking his head. It struck the wall and rolled back towards him with a sad little metallic sound.

"No! _No_! I'm not going back to the nightmares and all the rest of it!" Malfoy shouted, and then turned and ran in the direction of the dungeons.

Harry stared at his back. Then he looked down at the locket. The sheen of the swan on the front seemed dulled; this time, all the light that came along with it seemed to have flowed into Malfoy's skin. Harry bent down and slowly picked it up. The chain wrapped his fingers as securely as he remembered Petunia wrapping Dudley's gifts.

"Well," Harry muttered, speaking to the locket because he had no one else to say it to, "I suppose we have some work ahead of us."


	2. Chapter 2

"Not that Malfoy's a great Seeker _now_."

Harry had encouraged the conversation about Quidditch at breakfast that morning, had let it get louder and louder, and now it had reached the point where him saying that didn't even sound unnatural. He made sure to toss a sneer at the Slytherin table for good measure.

Malfoy didn't look up, of course. The infusion of emotion he had received from the locket might have lasted through the night, but Harry hadn't seen him then, so he didn't know for certain. Malfoy just sat with his head bowed and his hair trailing around him.

But the rest of the Slytherin Quidditch team was puffing up like toads. "What did you say?" growled Goyle.

"I said that Malfoy's not a great Seeker now," Harry said, shrugging at them. "You have to have passion for the game, you know, and Malfoy doesn't have any." Then he grabbed a piece of bread and drizzled honey on it and ate away without a care in the world.

Goyle stared stupidly at him, but a younger Slytherin, someone Burke, shook his head. "Of course Malfoy cares about being the Seeker!" he said, and nudged Malfoy in the ribs. "Come on, Malfoy, show them!"

"What are you talking about?"

Malfoy's voice was faint and uncaring. Hermione narrowed her eyes at him and then at Harry, as if to say that she knew what he was doing. Harry widened his eyes innocently back. She was free to think what she wanted. It still wasn't Harry's fault that Malfoy had done this to himself and other people were starting to notice.

"You want to beat Gryffindor!"

"Yeah, tell them, Malfoy!"

"You're a great Seeker!"

"I am?" Malfoy spoke the words and then sat there with his mouth hanging a little open. Harry managed to keep from rolling his eyes. If nothing else happened, Malfoy was probably going to end up in St. Mungo's. People would assume he'd gone mental.

"Yes, of course you are!" Even Goyle looked a little disturbed. "Malfoy, we're talking about _Quidditch_!"

"We are?"

Burke turned around and scowled at Harry. "What did you do to our Seeker, Potter?"

"Nothing." Harry swallowed his bread and reached for the next slice. "He's been like this for weeks, haven't you noticed? That's why I'm saying that he isn't going to be any competition on the pitch."

"Malfoy, wake _up_."

"Maybe he needs some food," Goyle grunted, and started piling the plate in front of Malfoy with so many random things Harry shuddered at the thought of what they would taste like together.

Harry turned away, satisfied that at least some other people had noticed the problem. He encountered Ron's confusion and Hermione's focused gaze when he did.

"Don't think that we didn't notice that, Harry," Hermione told him primly. "We _did_. But you can't make other people care about Malfoy. Whatever Malfoy did, he should be left to work it out for himself."

"You can look at him and think he _can _help himself? You think he's dealing with it now?"

"Well…" Hermione paused. "Maybe not. But we don't need to concern ourselves about him, Harry. He isn't trying to help Voldemort. This isn't sixth year."

"And why would you try to make him a better Seeker anyway, mate?" Ron interjected. "We _want _Slytherin to lose, remember?"

"Maybe I don't want anyone to lose themselves," Harry said softly, and did glance back in time to see Goyle and Burke haul Malfoy to his feet and towards the hospital wing. "Maybe I want _real _competition."

* * *

"You know what's wrong with him, don't you? Fix him."

Harry blinked and turned around. Gregory Goyle had come up behind him in the corridor that led to the Charms classroom and was standing with his arms folded, glaring.

"I don't know _exactly _what's wrong with him," Harry tried to hedge, because Goyle looked as intimidating as hell. "I mean, I know what he did to himself, but I've tried to get him to put it back, and he won't."

"So tell me what he did."

Harry considered Goyle carefully. He might be using simple words, but he was at least acting smarter than he had all of their Hogwarts years. So Harry tried. "He made a wish to exile all of his pain and store it in a heart-shaped locket. He has to take it back into himself if he's to gain his passion again, but that would mean accepting the pain. He's told me that he doesn't want it, that he's happy the way he is."

Goyle subjected Harry to a searching stare, and then the walls, and then the floor. He was frowning and tapping his fingers together. "Where's the locket?"

Harry unhooked the chain of the locket from his neck, where he'd taken to keeping it, down inside his robes. Goyle gave him a funny look as he reached out to take it. "You're wearing it over your _heart_, Potter?"

Harry hadn't known that his face could still get so red. Since the war, he mostly didn't blush anymore. Then again, Malfoy had disrupted everything and made everything different. "Shut up," he muttered.

Goyle only gave him a half-hearted smirk as he turned away. "I have better things to tell Slytherin's _Seeker_, Potter."

Harry told himself that his bereft feeling as he watched Goyle walk away with the locket was a stupid one. It was better that Malfoy's friends tried something to fix him. Of course it was. That he had even thought otherwise was a sign of his stupidity.

_It's not my problem anymore, _Harry thought, and tried to imitate Hermione's approving tone to himself as he turned and walked away.

It didn't help that he thought he heard a plaintive _clink _from the locket as Goyle carried it off.

* * *

"He won't _take _it."

Harry wanted to bury his head in his hands. Finding himself in the Charms corridor with members of the Slytherin Quidditch team seemed to be becoming a common occurrence. He turned around. "Well, of course he won't. I told you that he wished all his pain away. He doesn't want it back."

"Yes, but we thought you were making that up," Burke said firmly. "It sounds daft."

"Malfoy is the daft one here, not me!" Harry threw his hands up. "Him and the Headmistress. I _told _her that Malfoy was lacking in—everything, and she told me it didn't matter and to keep my nose out of it! And my friends thought the same thing!"

"But you were always right when Draco was up to something," Goyle said, giving him a funny look.

"_Thank _you," Harry said fervently.

"So how do we fix this?" Burke demanded.

Harry thought about it, glancing back and forth from the locket that dangled in Goyle's fingers to Burke's face. He finally made a decision. "Can you tell him that I want to challenge him to a Seeker's match on the pitch?"

"We can tell him." Burke folded his arms. "But I don't think he's going to pay any more attention to that than he did to Madam Pomfrey's scan trying to find out what's wrong with him."

"Then you take care of getting him to the pitch. I'll take care of the rest." Harry held his hand out, and thought he could hear a _clonk _of relief from the locket as it passed from Goyle's fingers to Harry. He might just be making that up, though.

"What are you going to do, Potter?" Burke was peering at him suspiciously, but it was Goyle who asked the question. He had a look of simple faith on his face.

"Play a Seeker's game with him, of course." Harry smiled and tucked the locket around his neck to hang over his heart again.

* * *

"Harry, you are. Being _ridiculous_." Ron panted out the words as he came running after him. Harry was striding towards the pitch with the replacement Firebolt he'd bought after the war over his shoulder.

"Maybe I am," Harry said, with a small shrug. He could see the stir of green-accented robes ahead that meant the Slytherin Quidditch team was here to watch him cure Malfoy. "But you don't have to be here. You don't have to be involved, if you don't want to."

"I just wish you would leave Malfoy _alone_. It's none of your business!"

"I hope that, if I was drowning, someone would come rescue me, even if my best friends weren't around, and not turn away under the pretense that it's none of their business." Harry finally saw blond hair, and nodded. Burke and Goyle had probably had to drag Malfoy, but they'd got him here, and that was all Harry was really concerned about at the moment.

"Malfoy's not bloody _drowning_."

"No, but he's as good as." Harry turned around and gave Ron a steady look when he opened his mouth again. "Look, it's not any of your business if I want to do this, either, so why not give it a rest?"

"When my best mate's making a fool of himself, I have to be there."

Harry grinned, clapped Ron's shoulder, and kept walking without looking behind him to listen to any more complaints. Ron could stand by him and had made it clear that he wanted to, but Harry was going to do this his own way.

"Potter." Burke had his hands shoved in his pockets, but he was standing against Malfoy so that he couldn't run away. "How are we going to do this?"

"You're not going to do anything," Harry said. He kept his eyes on Malfoy as he slid the Firebolt off his shoulder. Then he unhooked the locket from over the top of his heart.

"What are you doing, Potter?" demanded the current Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, a hulking brute whose name Harry frankly couldn't be bothered to remember.

"Things," Harry said shortly. He began to rotate the locket around his head. It hummed encouragingly. When he got to the point where he would probably hit himself in the head if he tried to stop, he opened his fingers and let it fly, and watched with some satisfaction as it hurt Malfoy in the chest, right over his heart.

Malfoy gasped and staggered, his hand rising. It closed on the chain of the locket, and Harry knew he didn't imagine the golden glow that broke through Malfoy's gripping fingers this time. His head sagged back and he took a long, deep breath.

Then he snapped his head forwards and roared, "_Potter_!"

Harry grinned. He knew that pink flush that seemed to have made its way down Malfoy's face to his chest. He knew that hopping in rage. He knew that tone of voice that suggested the worst thing anyone could do in the universe was hurt or inconvenience Draco Malfoy.

"You could have broken my bloody _ribs_!" Malfoy gestured while not actually releasing the locket or his grip on his chest. "What were you _thinking_?"

"I'm thinking that I'll have no trouble beating you in Quidditch this year because of how apathetic you are."

Malfoy froze, staring at him.

"But that's not really the point, since I've always beaten you before," Harry said idly. "Really, the point is that _Ravenclaw _is going to beat you." He paused, as if about to admit a terrible secret, and added, "And _Hufflepuff._"

"I am _not _going to be beaten by Hufflepuff," Malfoy said, but there was uncertainty flickering in his face, and he hadn't let go of the locket yet.

"Why not? You've been walking around not eating and gaping at the wall." Harry rolled his eyes. "Well, I suppose I should thank you for a gift of no challenges in this Quidditch season, but it's a little disappointing. I always thought Slytherin was worth more than that, you know?"

"I _am _worth more than that!" Malfoy stalked a step forwards.

"Not without your passion, without your heart." Harry curled his lip and shook his head, then threw his Firebolt underhanded to Malfoy. Malfoy caught it without releasing the locket. "Look, I'll prove it. You can use my Firebolt for this game—" no way was he going to say something like "you can have it," when Malfoy would try to presume on that when he got back to normal "—and I'll use a Cleansweep Six. I'll _still beat you_."

"You won't!" Malfoy slung a leg over the Firebolt, moving awkwardly.

Ron, bless him, had already run and got a Cleansweep Six from the Quidditch supplies shed. Harry draped his leg over it, rolled his eyes so that Malfoy could see him, and then took off into the sky.

Malfoy followed with a bellow.

But he also dropped the locket.

Harry hung upside-down from the broom, one arm and one leg over it, and cast a Summoning Charm at the locket. It sped after him and wrapped around his fingers. Harry swung back up, in time to see a stupid look descend on Malfoy's face and his jaw widen as he looked around.

"What am I doing up here?"

Harry zoomed up behind him—a lot slower than the Firebolt could go, but on the other hand, Malfoy wasn't trying to use that speed right now—and hit him in the back of the head with the chain of the locket. Malfoy turned around, glaring at him. Then his Firebolt launched itself towards Harry.

And overshot. Harry turned on a dime, forcing the Cleansweep into a maneuver that made its bristles creak, and smiled tauntingly as Malfoy spun to glare at him.

"On a better broom, _my _broom, and you still can't beat me." Harry shook his head sadly. "Come on, Malfoy, admit it. Just admit that I'm a better Seeker, and all of this pain will go away."

With a roar, Malfoy soared towards him again. Harry just dodged a little bit out of the way. Malfoy was a good flier, but he wasn't used to the Firebolt's speed, which meant that he couldn't halt the momentum when he wanted to. Once again, he was past Harry, and aiming towards the wall of the school. He pulled up before that and turned a dazed look on Harry.

"What a _git_," Harry said, and didn't really care who heard him. The effects of touching the locket kept getting less and less. He aimed straight at Malfoy and saw his eyes widen, sluggishly, a second before their brooms locked.

Harry struggled, grunting, with Malfoy in midair, and barely managed to slip the chain over Malfoy's head when he felt hands pushing him off the Cleansweep. He let go with his arms and went with the tumble, then pulled up, holding onto the broom with both legs.

Malfoy was shrieking at him, and clawing at the locket with one hand that kept hovering off into the air again. Harry grinned. Malfoy was acting like the locket was too hot to touch, but Harry would bet his vault that that wasn't it. Malfoy couldn't deal with the emotions that were flooding him now.

"I got rid of you! I don't want you!"

Harry had been waiting for this. He took the Snitch that Dumbledore had left to him from his pocket and tossed it casually in the air. He'd been working on the enchantments, and now the wings whirred, weakly.

"Then you don't want this victory, either, I reckon," he drawled, and threw the Snitch as hard as he could.

Malfoy turned around to gape after it, and then seemed to realize he was gaping. He narrowed his eyes furiously at Harry, and the Firebolt shot off.

Harry came behind him, not as fast, but he didn't need to be as fast. He was watching the locket chain where it curled around Malfoy's throat, and how it shimmered and twisted, and, this was the important part, grew less substantial even as he watched.

As Malfoy grunted with effort and leaned over to catch the Snitch, the locket shivered one last time and disappeared completely.

And Malfoy screamed with all his heart. He forgot about the Snitch and hunched over the Firebolt, swearing and starting to vomit.

Harry narrowed his eyes and urged the Cleansweep on with all his speed. In seconds, he was underneath Malfoy, and he surged upwards. He was coming the right direction, he judged, and—

Yeah. He was on the right angle of approach.

His arms closed around Malfoy.

Malfoy gave a single sob and turned towards him, his face ravaged. There were tears in his eyes and his mouth, and he yelled directly into Harry's face, "That's why I got _rid _of it! Because it was so awful! Guilt and hatred and fear all twisted up into each other!"

"You can't get rid of it without dying," Harry said, and held him, and refused to let go. "Or burning through it. Come on, Malfoy. I'll help you."

"But you have no _reason _to!"

"Being without your heart for so long made you rely on the power of logic, huh?" Harry held Malfoy steadily and refused to pay attention to the weak pushes against his chest. The arm that Malfoy had wrapped around his shoulders in response to Harry's hold spoke much more loudly. "I had plenty of reason. I saw you drowning. Someone who sees someone else drowning should rescue them."

"So it wasn't—because it's me. I'm just a Potter charity case."

Even those words were spikier than the ones Malfoy would have used just a while ago. Harry smiled and held on. "Oh, partially because it's you," he admitted. "I'd miss your prissy little voice."

Malfoy laughed, or did something that might have been a laugh if it hadn't turned into a choked sob halfway through. He clung to Harry with furious arms and shook him. Harry kept them both flying, using his knees to steer the Cleansweep and the way he leaned on Malfoy to steer the Firebolt.

"I felt so much better without the pain, though," Malfoy whispered an endless time later. They were both too high to listen to the voices shouting from below. Plenty of time for that when Malfoy was recovered, Harry thought. "Peaceful."

"Be honest, Malfoy. Were you really feeling _anything_?"

"No, but—but I made the choice. You had no right to force the locket back on me." Malfoy's voice was getting stronger, and he gave Harry a vicious shake. "_Why _did you interfere?"

"Call me strange, Malfoy, but I do prefer to interfere when someone's going to commit suicide."

"I wasn't _dying_."

"Uh-huh. You just sat through meals because you've learned how to eat air!"

They were practically yelling in each other's faces now. Harry felt a burst of happiness crash through him. This was the way it should be, and what Malfoy would have given up if he had been allowed to persist in his slow suicide.

"You shouldn't have done this!"

Harry would have liked to cross his arms across his chest and glare, but there were too many considerations that would follow if he did that, like how he was going to get untangled from Malfoy and who would be steering the brooms if he did. He settled for the glare instead. "You shouldn't have made such a stupid wish!"

"Uh, Malfoy?"

Both of them turned around to stare. Burke was hovering below on a Cleansweep that, like Harry's, must have come from the school shed. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Um, are you going to come back to the ground?"

Malfoy surged back from Harry and nodded regally, his hair falling around his ears. He would have looked more regal if not for how pink his face was. "Of course, Burke. The instant I catch the Snitch."

And off he flew, while Burke whooped and gave Harry a triumphant look, and Harry gave a rueful smile.

Of course, Malfoy's display was probably needed to reassure his teammates, which was why Harry wasn't going to tell them that he had his hand curled around the Snitch.

* * *

"Thanks for the loan of your Firebolt, Potter. Not that I needed your help, but I want to acknowledge gratitude where it's due."

Harry caught the broom Malfoy threw to him and nodded regally back, with what he knew was a more impressive effect than Malfoy had managed. "Sorry you couldn't catch the Snitch even with that."

Malfoy's face turned pink again, but he said, "There's always the next time."

"_Now _there's going to be a next time."

There was a long pause, and then Malfoy inclined his head. "Yes. Thanks, Potter."

For a fleeting second, there was an expression on his face that Harry wanted to see again. Something not so proud or prickly or stupid, and he leaned forwards, and he wanted to say something…

Malfoy flushed more deeply, almost red this time, and turned away. Harry sighed and turned back to Ron. "Thanks, mate."

"I'm just glad that apparently you're going to stop obsessing over Malfoy now that you've helped the git," Ron said fervently. "Come on, let's get back up near the common room fire where it's warm."

Harry turned to follow Ron, but kept looking over his shoulder for a moment. Malfoy's eyes were waiting for his.

The look in them…

_Well, I may have to disappoint Ron._

**The End**


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